The following was excerpted from an article that originally appeared on McClatchy.

As my mom and I were walking through a department store recently, she spied a colorful plaid quilted vest. "Ooh, that's pretty," she said and reached for the price tag.

Meanwhile, I was looking at the contents label. "Uh-oh, it contains down," I told her.

"Oh, no," she said, dropping the vest as if it had bitten her. "I guess I won't be buying that."

Like me, Mom loves animals. She's a vegan, and she refuses to wear anything made of leather, silk, or wool—or down.

Much of the down used in coats, comforters, vests, and blankets is "live-plucked"—ripped from the bodies of birds who are still alive. Plucking may begin when the birds are just 10 weeks old and be repeated every six to seven weeks until the birds are slaughtered at around age 4, far short of their natural lifespan of 10 to 20 years.

Workers are paid by the goose, rather than by the hour, so speed is of the essence, leading to rough handling and injuries. Undercover video footage shot on a Hungarian goose farm shows workers picking up and carrying geese by their necks or wings. The frightened birds are flipped upside down and pinned between workers' knees while they rip out fistfuls of feathers. One worker was photographed sitting on a goose's neck in order to prevent her from escaping.

The good news is that there are several alternatives to down, including Thinsulate, PrimaLoft, and Polarguard, that are less expensive, less bulky, easier to launder, and excellent insulators. They also perform well when wet, unlike down, which absorbs moisture, loses loft and insulating ability, and takes a long time to dry.

In fact, many brands sell quilted vests insulated with PrimaLoft. Don't tell my mom, but she just might be finding one under her Christmas tree this year.

Get ready to practice your high-fives and Bronx cheers—here's our quasi-monthly round-up of animal friends and foes:

• Kisses to California for making the water safer for sharks. The state banned the sale, trade, or possession of shark fins, which are cut off live sharks who are then thrown back into the water to sink to the ocean floor and die. An extra smooch goes to the Toronto City Council for voting to ban shark fins in that city.
• Fish foe Alex Andon makes our hiss list for developing the Desktop Jellyfish Tank, in which up to five jellyfish can be imprisoned. To help understand what's wrong with this, take a look at the online documentary Jellyfish Lake.
• A kiss to the New York state government for passing a dissection choice law that lets students choose not to cut up frogs and other animals and instead opt for state-of-the-art-computer programs that leave animals in peace.   
• Rihanna has crawled her way onto the year's worst-dressed list, first for her penchant for fur—and now for ostrich feathers, which are cruelly torn off live birds or birds who have been sent to slaughter.
• Kisses to the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation for adopting dogs from shelters to be trained as disaster search dogs. The dogs are paired with a human rescuer who provides them with a real home and affection.
• And finally, a kiss for truth in advertising to Dex Media Inc. When the company listed Bozeman and Belgrade, Montana's Bar 3 Bar-B-Q restaurants in its yellow-pages directory under "Animal Carcass Removal," it certainly had the restaurant's number!

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Sami Sieranoja | cc by 2.0

Update: Fine Featherheads has deleted the statement from its website indicating that the roosters are "treated ethically."

Fine Featherheads, which tacks the feathers of gassed roosters into its customers' hair faster than you can say "misinformed fashion victim," had the audacity to post on its website that the roosters are "treated ethically" at its exclusive supplier, Whiting Farms. PETA has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Fine Featherheads founder, Dakota Hills, demanding that she remove the blatant falsehood from the site.

"We are informed that you visited the conditions in which the roosters are confined and killed for their feathers," wrote PETA Foundation General Counsel Jeffrey S. Kerr. These conditions include confining roosters to solitary cages stacked one on top of the other in noisy, windowless sheds until the birds are finally gassed and skinned. Mr. Whiting admits that he and his workers abuse the birds, even hurling them across the barn.

There is nothing "ethical" about the treatment of the roosters at Whiting Farms, only a financial motivation for Hills to mislead customers. If she does not remove the false statements from her website, PETA will pursue action with appropriate state and federal regulators.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Bravo to the good folks at CBS 5 in San Francisco for running with a chilling Swedish investigative report on the down industry.

In case you think that the down filling in coats and pillows is gathered by a kindly farmer who just follows molting birds around all day and fills a sack with their lost feathers, here's an eye-opener: An investigative team from the Swedish TV show Cold Facts went undercover on goose farms in Poland, Hungary, and China and videotaped workers yanking fistfuls of feathers out of live birds, a process that a veterinarian contacted by CBS 5 described as "torture." At one farm, a worker is shown using a needle and thread to sew a goose's skin back together after the skin had been ripped apart during plucking.

Makes that down comforter seem less comforting, doesn't it? Luckily for geese and the people who don't wish to hurt them, down-alternative comforters are just as cozy and cuddly as those made from down. I speak from personal experience—I happen to have one on my bed … along with three toasty kitties and a dog.

Written by Alisa Mullins